nd namesake,
and the son of the justice, Patrick Henry. Hanover County was a center
of Presbyterianism and in the jury box undoubtedly sat men who already
had a dislike for Anglican clergymen whose salaries they were compelled
to pay but whose churches they did not attend.

Young Patrick Henry, in his first prominent trial, launched immediately
into a scathing attack on the established clergy, calling them
"rapacious harpies", men who would "snatch from the hearth of their
honest parishioners his last hoe-cake, from the widow and her orphan
children their last milch cow; the last bed, nay, the last blanket from
the lyin-in woman". Having stunned his audience into silence, Henry
turned his invective upon the king. Although the constitutionality of
the law was not an issue, because the county court had already decided
it was constitutional, Henry proceeded to excoriate the king himself
for violating the English constitution. His biographer, Robert Meade,
notes:

Henry insisted on the relationship and reciprocal duties of the
King and his subjects. Advancing the doctrine of John Locke as
popularized by Richard Bland and other colonial leaders, he
contended that government is a conditional compact, composed of
mutually dependent agreements 'of which the violation by one party
discharged the other'. He bravely argued that the disregard of the
pressing wants of the colony was 'an instance of royal misrule',
which had thus far dissolved the political compact, and left the
people at liberty to consult their own safety.[9]

[9] Robert D. Meade, Patriot in the Making (Patrick Henry)
(Lippincott: Philadelphia, 1957), 132.

The jury retired, and then returned with its verdict--one penny damages
for Parson Maury. Henry had lost the legal case, he had won the battle
for their minds and hearts.

Out of the Parsons' Cause in 1763 came four important developments: the
Anglican clergy suffered an irreparable setback and loss of status; the
House of Burgesses now closely scrutinized the instructions from king
to governor; the suspending clause was seen as a direct challenge to
colonial legislative rights; and Patrick Henry burst forth as the
popular spokesman for Virginia rights, winning a seat in the 1765
election to the House of Burgesses. In 1763 few people were willing to
accept his premise that the king had been guilty of "royal misrule". In
a dozen years they would.

Thus, by 1